“It’s a lot like cooking: I get the best ingredients then use my palate to steer flavor in the most interesting direction,” Schlesselman said.

Schlesselman distills the elixir — dubbed “Due North Rum”($35), which is not yet for sale — at a low temperature to create a light-but-full-bodied flavor.

He said he opened the 225-barrel operation in Red Hook because there’s enough industrial space to set up shop and the hood has a “pioneering spirit.”

Rum makers are rare outside the Caribbean — and there are only a handful in New York — but Schlesselman is not the only one anchoring the trade in Red Hook: Cacao Prieto bottles chocolate-based rum using organic cacao from the Dominican Republic just four blocks away, proving the liquor has sailed far beyond its days as cheap pirate swill.